Sunday, January 11, 2009

Cat toys and new litter

Holy smokes, I actually found a catnip toy--a toy of any kind--that Minnie likes! Minnie came to me as a stray--probably turned out by some wretched college student when they left for home at the end of the semester--and didn't know how to play, at first. She's learned how since then, but only for a little while at a time, and only uber-stimulating stuff like Mom dragging around a bootlace for her to chase, or shining the red laser dot hither & yon. Static toys haven't presented much interested for her.

When I was at PetSmart yesterday getting litter, I spotted this Dr. Noys feathered carrot catnip toy and it reminded me of an incident early in my acquaintance with Miss Minnie when she turned up at the end of her morning constitutional holding a little stuffed cloth carrot in her mouth. I had no idea where she got it, and I was afraid she'd raided some other kitty's toybox for it! In any case, she brought it in and played with it for quite a while.

No carrotless kitties ever showed up at my door demanding their toy back, so maybe some kind soul gave it to her. :)

So, anyway, I bought this carrot toy for Minnie and as soon as she saw it, she made a beeline for it, picked it up in her mouth, and carried it off to play with it. I had put the catnip packet inside even though she's never seemed to react to catnip. I'm not sure she did this time, either, but she did seem to get a little weird after playing with the carrot for a little while, as if she didn't like it anymore. When I got up this morning, though, I noticed the carrot was in a different position than I left it at bedtime, so she did play with it during the night.

Do cats who don't react to catnip grow into it? Does Minnie like this carrot because she remembers that other one (even though she stopped playing with the "stolen" carrot after a while)? Got me! All I know is I'm going to try some more Dr. Noys toys on Minnie next time I have the money.

Referring back to litter, which is why I actually went shopping in the first place, I'm going to try to switch Minnie from her accustomed clay litter to something more environmentally friendly. Clay cat litter sits in the landfill forever, never biodegrading, which is not good for the planet. I tried Feline Pine, but Minnie didn't like it--the odd shape and appearance maybe; it looks like little sticks instead of being granular like the clay litter she's used to. So this time I bought a bag of her regular litter and a bag of Nature's Miracle which is made from ground-up corn cobs. It's granular like regular litter, so the switch from clay to NM ought to be more transparent. I'll let you know how it goes.

Aaaah the Dr Noys Catnip Carrot is a very favoured toy here too, Cats that are going to get the nip buzz will start to show nip reaction when they are about 4 months old we have read. We've had cats get really excited by nip toys but totally ignore fresh primo nip, so we aren't so sure if they are copying the cats who do get the nip response or not - it's an odd one.